18 yrs ago: Nushki to Quetta, Day 1

18 years ago this month: Nushki to Quetta, Day 1:

Two days after sleeping on the desert floor in the western province of Pakistan, Baluchistan, under the "magic" willow, surrounded by 3 metre-long vipers (see Dec 9, 2008 entry), we reached the city of Nushki. Coen, one of the two Dutch guys who had accompanied me from Istanbul to this remote area, fell ill with amoebic dysentery just as we arrived. We were all alarmed seeing him disoriented, trembling with weakness and losing his balance. He must have drunk something that the rest of us hadn't. There was no way he could continue with us so Vincent, his Dutch companion, stayed behind to look after him during his treatment and recovery.

The rest of us continued to the capital of the province, Quetta, two days' ride away, where we would wait for them to rejoin us. There were four of us now, Kate and Stephen, the two Brits who had joined us in Iran, Carlos, a Spaniard we had met cycling on the same road the day before arriving in Nushki, and me. The Brits were selfish pains in the ass, especially Kate, and we could barely stand to speak to each other, but Carlos was kind and friendly. I considered staying behind with Coen and Vincent but I didn't have enough money. My wallet had been stolen in Iran and I needed to get to a bank in Quetta as soon as possible.

The road to Quetta was in better shape than what we had been used to. We climbed out of the valley where Nushki was into a high desert. I didn't have amoebic dysentery but I felt myself becoming ill again. My stomach rumbled and I felt weak. I began to fall behind my companions. Then my front tire developed a slow leak. The others disappeared from view while I stopped to pump it up. It wasn't safe to be alone in this area so I didn't linger to take the inner tube out and patch it.

I assumed the others would wait for me to catch up. They did wait, but each time they saw me in the distance they took off again before I could reach them. The leak was worsening and I had to stop more frequently. I was holding them up. The Brits were probably pissed at me, but they obviously didn't care why I continued to fall behind. The daylight was waning. I assumed they would soon stop at a nearby town to spend the night but Kate didn't see any place to her liking so they continued riding into the night.

The road climbed through a high pass that reached a height of 1900m. The temperature fell to freezing and I was growing sicker and weaker by the hour. The others no longer waited for me as it was too dark to see me approaching. It was definitely too dark to change my tire. It was difficult enough to pump up it up, and that I had to do every couple kilometres by that point. Somewhere in the pass I heard what I assumed to be Pakistani soldiers shouting at me. They were in some fortified post in the hills above me. I couldn't see them or understand what they were saying. I wasn't sure if they had night goggles and could see me, or if they had just heard me. I felt it was best to continue as I wasn't sure what else to do. I had no protection being alone. They might have robbed or raped me if they had stopped me on the road. I half expected them to shoot at me but the shots never came.

I glided down from the pass and after a few stops to pump up my tire, I ran into the other three waiting for me by the side of the road on the outskirts of a village. They were considering whether or not it was safe to stop there for the night. Kate didn't like it as there were only adobe buildings but it was already 10 pm.

My insides had turned to raunchy liquid and I had to could not hold it in any longer. I left Carlos holding my bike while Kate and Stephen argued. There was no vegetation to hide behind so I aimed for a cinder-block building set in a field in the opposite side of the road from the town. In the middle of the far side, sheltered from the freezing wind and view of the road, I squatted and emptied the contents of my bowels, which flowed like steaming, putrid lava over the frozen ground. I did my best to clean my ass with desert sand and then hobbled back to the other three.

They had come to agreement that the next town may be still an hour away and that they should look for a place to sleep in the town. There were obviously no hotels. It would take them a while to ask around and find a place to sleep, and that once settled the locals would want to stay up and talk and drink with them. I was not up to that. I was dead tired and trembling terribly with cold and sickness. I could go no further. The best thing to do would be to sleep in the field, sheltered by the wind on the far side of the cinder-block building. I told the others where they would find me in the morning and rolled my loaded bike with its flat tire off the road and across the frozen ground.

I had emptied my bowels at the mid-point of the far side. There was just enough room to lean my bicycle on one side of the mess and to roll out my sleeping bag on the other side. I was concerned that some local might try to sneak off with my bike so I stretched the strings at the bottom edge of my sleeping bag over the puddle of sewage and tired them onto the front wheel of my bike. My bag was only good to freezing. The night was much colder than that so I took all my clothes out of my panniers and did my best to pad them around me. I climbed in and pulled the top of the bag tightly over my head with a prayer that I'd still be alive the next morning.